Branch International

Branch International was founded on a premise that mainstream financial institutions had treated as an acceptable limitation for decades: that the majority of people in emerging markets are unbankable because they lack the credit history, collateral, and documentation that traditional lending requires.

Branch’s response was not to lower lending standards. It was to replace the data those standards were built on.

Founded in San Francisco in 2015, Branch uses machine learning and alternative data – smartphone usage patterns, transaction behaviour, app activity, and device metadata – to build credit profiles for users who have never held a formal loan, never used a credit card, and never appeared in a credit bureau database. The result is a creditworthiness assessment that does not require the applicant to prove financial history through channels they have never had access to. It assesses financial behaviour through channels they use every day.

The practical output is personal loans disbursed directly to a user’s mobile phone in minutes, without branch visits, without paper documentation, and without the collateral requirements that exclude the majority of Nigeria’s working population from formal credit. Repayment is structured in instalments through the app, and on-time repayment builds the kind of credit track record within Branch’s system that progressively unlocks higher limits and lower rates.

Beyond lending, Branch has expanded into savings products – extending its value proposition from credit access to broader personal financial management for consumers in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, and India.

With over five million customers served across its markets, Branch is one of the most widely used digital lending platforms in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria, it holds FCCPC full approval under the DEON Consumer Lending Regulations 2025.